Full of adventure, history, and passion, this tale delivers an exciting ride through the gold rush with a singular hero.
A Mexican bandit tells the story of his life as a lover and an outlaw in 19th-century California in this novel.
The California Rangers have finally killed the notorious Joaquín Murrieta, horse thief, murderer, and the scourge of the Old West. They have preserved his severed head in a jar of whiskey to present it to the authorities to collect a handsome reward. Joaquín, still sentient, notes wryly, “When whiskey goes to your head it is not so bad really...if you no longer have a stomach.” Joaquín proceeds to relate his rather colorful life story, starting in a small village in Sonora. He grows up among scorpions and a threatening panther in a world steeped in magic and folklore. As a teen, he spends three years learning to track and capture mustangs before returning home to marry his beloved Rosita. He and Rosita and three others decide to head north to California, arriving in San Francisco in the 1840s, early enough that they can still pick sizable gold nuggets out of the ground. The environment they inhabit is at first ideal but soon turns rough, yet the stallionlike Joaquín is undeterred. Settling in a secret valley, Joaquín steals horses and other people’s gold for a living, survives innumerable dicey encounters, and gains a reputation as a menace to society. Frustrated by gringo law and the Rangers, who are constantly pursuing him, Joaquín devises one last plot to take California for all it is worth and triumphantly ride back to Sonora with Rosita. But the Rangers have other plans for the bandit. Litton’s (Geminga: Sword of the Shining Path, 2016) novel has an irresistible premise, and the preserved head of the infamous Joaquín as narrator works very well, particularly in the book’s almost serene conclusion. The characters are fiery and real, and the indefatigable Joaquín has as much passion and even sweetness as he does bloodlust. Drenched in Mexican lore and California history, the story stands out for its convincing portrayal of the time period’s diverse competing interests and for its Spanish-laced prose, which has many wonderful lines. But the book is a bit long and somewhat overwritten; a more concise narrative would have helped to highlight the novel’s key events.
Full of adventure, history, and passion, this tale delivers an exciting ride through the gold rush with a singular hero.Pub Date: July 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-941408-65-0
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Crossroad Press Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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